Monday’s deadly shoot­ings at the Wash­ing­ton Navy Yard had Cap­it­ol Po­lice car­ry­ing auto­mat­ic weapons and sent the Sen­ate in­to an early ad­journ­ment for the day, not long be­fore the cham­ber is­sued an hours-long lock­down.

The moves were only pre­cau­tion­ary, but they served as a stark re­mind­er of the ex­treme se­cur­ity that can come in­to play at the Cap­it­ol, which has been both the scene of a shoot­ing and the tar­get of ter­ror­ist at­tacks in re­cent dec­ades.

“Com­ing in­to the Cap­it­ol, I knew something was up, be­cause I saw our po­lice of­ficers with their weapons, auto­mat­ic weapons that they usu­ally don’t carry, at least in view of every­body on Con­sti­tu­tion Av­en­ue and oth­er places,” said Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Harry Re­id, D-Nev.

From the Sen­ate floor, Re­id, who was a Cap­it­ol Po­lice of­ficer while at­tend­ing uni­versity (badge num­ber 363, he re­called) and Minor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell, R-Ky., praised law-en­force­ment of­fi­cials and first re­spon­ders be­fore re­cess­ing.

“These kinds of in­cid­ents al­ways re­mind us how fra­gile life is,” Mc­Con­nell said. “They also re­mind those of us who work in and around the Cap­it­ol how much we all owe to the men and wo­men who work so hard to keep us safe every day.”

Sen­ate Ser­geant at Arms Ter­rance Gain­er placed the Sen­ate com­plex on lock­down in the late af­ter­noon. “Our im­me­di­ate con­cern has been the un­knowns,” Gain­er said in a state­ment. “Is this an act of work­place vi­ol­ence or something more sin­is­ter?”

House Speak­er John Boehner, R-Ohio, also is­sued a state­ment. “This has been a dark day, and we know more of them lie ahead for the fam­il­ies of the vic­tims. Hop­ing that they find com­fort — and an­swers — is at the top of our minds,” Boehner said in the state­ment. “Next, we ought to say ‘Thank-you’ to the first re­spon­ders and law-en­force­ment pro­fes­sion­als — in­clud­ing Cap­it­ol Po­lice — who did their jobs and saved lives.”

Yet the House did not lock down, which pro­duced an at-times con­found­ing se­cur­ity en­vir­on­ment at the Cap­it­ol, with po­lice of­fer­ing con­flict­ing dir­ec­tions about where staffers and oth­ers who work on the Hill could and could not go. A re­port­er try­ing to walk from the Sen­ate side of the ro­tunda to the House side was stopped by po­lice, but was per­mit­ted to move from cham­ber to cham­ber on the Cap­it­ol’s third floor.

“It’s a very flu­id situ­ation,” one Cap­it­ol po­lice of­ficer said.

Bey­ond Monday’s re­cess, the shoot­ing also promp­ted the Sen­ate Ju­di­ciary Com­mit­tee to res­ched­ule a hear­ing on stand-your-ground gun laws from Tues­day to Wed­nes­day.

It’s un­clear ex­actly how many times either cham­ber of Con­gress has re­cessed be­cause of a se­cur­ity threat like the one at the Navy Yard, ac­cord­ing to the Sen­ate his­tor­i­an’s of­fice. The House re­cessed in 2001 after an an­thrax scare, but the Sen­ate re­mained in ses­sion for sev­er­al days, As­so­ci­ate His­tor­i­an Betty Koed said.

Fif­teen years ago, a lone gun­man with a his­tory of men­tal ill­ness entered a first-floor en­trance of the Cap­it­ol with tour­ists, then burst through a se­cur­ity check­point, shot and killed two of­ficers, and bolted in­to nearby of­fices of then-House Re­pub­lic­an Whip Tom DeLay. The 1998 ram­page by Rus­sell We­st­on Jr. jarred Con­gress to tight­en se­cur­ity for the Cap­it­ol and sur­round­ing areas. And three years later, the Sept. 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist at­tacks led to even tight­er se­cur­ity.

As late as the 1990s, the area in and around the Cap­it­ol re­sembled a col­lege cam­pus or park, with much of that feel­ing owed to the re­design by renowned ar­chi­tect Fre­d­er­ick Law Olms­ted in the 1870s. But today, the Cap­it­ol com­plex that in­cludes the House and Sen­ate of­fice build­ings, and the nearby Su­preme Court and Lib­rary of Con­gress, has be­come a labyrinth of jer­sey bar­ri­ers, blocked-off streets and build­ing en­trances, and traffic check­points. The se­cur­ity even ex­tends un­der­ground. The Cap­it­ol Vis­it­or Cen­ter, con­struc­ted and of­fi­cially opened in Decem­ber 2008 un­der the East Front plaza, now serves as the se­cur­ity screen­ing fun­nel for vis­it­ors to the Cap­it­ol.

When We­st­on went on his deadly at­tack, there were about 1,200 Cap­it­ol Po­lice of­ficers. The force now in­cludes 1,724 sworn of­ficers (plus 353 ci­vil­ian staffers), some equipped with more-power­ful high-caliber weapons, night-vis­ion cap­ab­il­it­ies, and bet­ter gear to pro­tect them­selves from bul­lets.

In ad­di­tion, se­cur­ity sys­tems and pro­cesses — such as mag­ne­to­met­ers to de­tect met­al ob­jects — are now in place at build­ing en­trances, and emer­gency-evac­u­ation meas­ures are in place for the com­plex. Sys­tems are also in place to safe­guard elec­tron­ic com­mu­nic­a­tions for Con­gress, and re­lo­ca­tion drills are held reg­u­larly. Mail-screen­ing pro­cesses have been moved to off-site loc­a­tions to thwart the use of reg­u­lar mail to de­liv­er deadly chem­ic­als.

Of course, We­st­on’s at­tack — and the failed tar­get­ing of the Cap­it­ol on 9/11 — cer­tainly wer­en’t the only times in his­tory that vi­ol­ence has threatened the build­ing. In 1814, Brit­ish forces set fire to the Cap­it­ol. In 1835, Pres­id­ent An­drew Jack­son was al­most as­sas­sin­ated out­side the Cap­it­ol ro­tunda. And in 1954, four Pu­erto Ric­an na­tion­al­ists wounded five law­makers when they fired guns from the vis­it­ors’ gal­lery above the House floor.

Still, it wasn’t so long ago when the grounds sur­round­ing the build­ing seemed much more open. Hill res­id­ents and tour­ists could jog or sight­see freely around the out­side bal­conies and steps, en­joy­ing spec­tac­u­lar views of the mall or just re­lax­ing. Not any­more.

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